Dear DK,

I just finished a manuscript, together with North that is called: "Inspired Designs, Inspired Poems" and you may guess......., of course these poems all are about Love. It will be transformed into a book, very soon now :)

Living in the now always inspires me somehow to see whole life as a poem and I am very grateful for the gift of putting it into words at the same time.

Hereunder a poem that just entered my mind:

My favourite love poem of the Moment:

The Kingdom of God is a quality of life

A way to be that goes beyond any strife

It is a paradox cause it is here now

But also coming in future somehow

It is a truth that sits inside

The feeling of always being the bride

Of a love so vast and so true

That tells me that there is nothing to do

Than surrendering to That What Is

In doing so I am surrounded by Bliss

And here another one, made it during my holiday, it is about Light, reflection and consciousness.

What is light?

Light is radiating vibrating energy.

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is insightfully thoughtless observing.

What is the vehicle of Light and Consciousness?

Reflection.

REFLECTION

A journey to and into the Light
A radiating observation giving insight
Into the unconsciously known
Wisdom revealing itself on its own

It is the home of the One being aware
Of the delightful wonder we all share
The vibrating colourful field of light
Shining in us so extraordinarily bright

Wanting to experience itself in reflection
Consciousness is then the mirror action
That shines brightly on the outside
Reflecting that light from the inside

The observation of this play of light
Seems to be our true birth right
In choiceless awareness every day
The dancers are able to see themselves this way

Not inside, not outside but before that stage
At which this whole play of light took place
It was still folded into itself
As a choice being present on a shelf

A point of perception hidden and deep
Into the unknown where it was asleep
To awaken once more to the light becoming present
As the observer just noticed the reflecting event

So what then IS reality
A wholesome threesome quality
Of the vehicle of the conscious light
Giving reflection oh so bright

Something that I knew all along
That’s why it makes me so strong
And why it makes me so aware
Of the fact that I want it to share

What I radiate I receive back
The pole can be negative, be positive, be black,
Be white, be dark, be light
Yet always it is the brightly shining light

I am very grateful for this gift of being my own poem of life :)

Mieke

You Tube Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc8tO52EVsk&feature=related

Love Poem from Rumi – “Desire”
Recorded by Deepak Chopra & Demi Moore

Part 1
A lover knows only humility, he has no choice.
He steals into your alley at night, he has no choice. He longs to kiss every lock of your hair, don't fret, he has no choice. In his frenzied love for you, he longs to break the chains of his imprisonment...He has no choice.

Part 2
A lover asked his beloved - Do you love yourself more than you love me? Beloved replied: I have died to myself and I live for you. I've disappeared from myself and my attributes, I am present only for you. I've forgotten all my learnings, But from knowing you I've become a scholar. I've lost all my strength, but from your power I am able. I love myself...I love you. I love you...I love myself.

Part 3
I am your lover, come to my side, I will open the gate to your love. Come settle with me, let us be neighbors to the stars. You have been hiding so long, endlessly drifting in the sea of my love.
Even so, you have always been connected to me.
Concealed, revealed, in the unknown, in the un-manifest. I am life itself.

Part 4
You have been a prisoner of a little pond, I am the ocean and its turbulent flood. Come merge with me, Leave this world of ignorance. Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.

Part 5
I desire you more than food or drink. My body my senses my mind hunger for your taste. I can sense your presence in my heart. Although you belong to all the world. I wait with silent passion for one gesture, one glance from you.

Hi D.K.

THis has always been one of my favorites.

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK

by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

ET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

* * *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Kind Regards,
Stan

Rumi and Hafiz are my favorite poets as they ecstatically share their relationship with God. I don't have their poetry books with me, so I couldn't say which poems I like best off the top of my head, as it's been awhile since I've read their work.

But there is this one line by Hafiz that has been playing in my head lately, which goes something like this ....

When I desire to touch the lips of God, I turn my hand over and kiss it.

Love, Char

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

(William Carlos Williams)

Briefly It Enters, Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years....

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper....

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me....

I am food on the prisoner's plate....

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills....

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden....

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge....

I am the heart contracted by joy....
the longest hair, white
before the rest....

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow....

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern of the boggy summit....

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name....

....Jane Kenyon

After Metaphysics, or When the Fly
Leaves the Flybottle

Just when I'm ready to call in the day and put it to bed without super,
you send the mockingbird who plays with his musical zipper,
exposing the World's underlife.
You send purfume from the autumn olive
whose septillion flowering ears are full of bees
singing songs for the revolution.
Out back Jake's Creek is speaking in tongues---
Missed you---missed you---missed you.

You wear me down, obsessively
rubbing your hands along my better judgement,
kissing the upturned noses of all my higher principles, until
my clothes are big as a mast sail,
until my longing leavens one thousand wedding cakes,
my longing is an undertow, and all the tourist beaches are posted: Danger

Come for me--I'll break off my arms and will them to a body of water, hang my legs up in overalls at night
so they won't come after us, feed English to the birds in sweet pats of butter.

Then our loving gets raucous---
white moths yapping their wings---you wag, you wag in the little fingerbowl of me.

Your verbstem assumes declensions of mythic proportions,
My vowel sounds open on the south-most hallelujah side of the mountain.
Then metaphysically speaking we've stopped speaking.
metaphorically---Silence

nuanced as a landscape in snow.

Deborah Slicer

After Metaphysics, or When the Fly
Leaves the Flybottle

Just when I'm ready to call in the day and put it to bed without super,
you send the mockingbird who plays with his musical zipper,
exposing the World's underlife.
You send purfume from the autumn olive
whose septillion flowering ears are full of bees
singing songs for the revolution.
Out back Jake's Creek is speaking in tongues---
Missed you---missed you---missed you.

You wear me down, obsessively
rubbing your hands along my better judgement,
kissing the upturned noses of all my higher principles, until
my clothes are big as a mast sail,
until my longing leavens one thousand wedding cakes,
my longing is an undertow, and all the tourist beaches are posted: Danger

Come for me--I'll break off my arms and will them to a body of water, hang my legs up in overalls at night
so they won't come after us, feed English to the birds in sweet pats of butter.

Then our loving gets raucous---
white moths yapping their wings---you wag, you wag in the little fingerbowl of me.

Your verbstem assumes declensions of mythic proportions,
My vowel sounds open on the south-most hallelujah side of the mountain.
Then metaphysically speaking we've stopped speaking.
metaphorically---Silence

nuanced as a landscape in snow.

Deborah Slicer

Here are 4 of mine, DK! and at the end, two from one of my favorite poets since I were a teen in the 70's.. Kahlil Gibran!! : )

MY ROCK
In the long ago,
when first we met;
when words of silence
fell between in twilight;
as misty morning thoughts inspire;
as the smell of roses seep,
through windows unlocked,

always

a man always, he is somewhere..

evenin thought, his words
are cool and soothing.

Anonymous is he..
yet,
I cling to him;
as a flower to the vine.

My faithful friend,
My rock!

North/DDS 06-17-2000

---

OH WINDING HEART
Oh winding heart;
where does thoug lead me,
on trails that twine,
ever so endlessly?

From twilight to twilight,
I hold steadfast,
as my twittering sould
dances, at last!

North/DDS-01-11-1998

---

THOUGHTS OF YOU

Thoughts of you
flood caverns
in my memories;
resting warm,
by the burning embers
of my heart.

North/DDS-10-18-1999

---

For Peter, whom dared me to write a poem on-spot about him...he always said he was my "Rock" and he was, spritually, and an online friend... I knew only a short while.

WE ARE A MOUNTAIN
Your only responsibility
as my rock,
is to also let me be yours!
In this, we are wealthy, Peter.
It is this, that made us
rocks for others;
and in doing so..
we are a mountain!

North/DDS-06-23-2000

---

Kahlil Gibran--quotations from the love letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell..1977-Book: I Care About Your Happiness-selected by: Susan Polis Schutz

"That deepest thing. that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you, and it is the same now--only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.

Kahlil Gibran, from Mary Haskell's Journal
March 12, 1922

---

Kahlil Gibran

"Each and every one of us, dear Mary, must have a resting place somewhere. The resting place of my soul is a beautiful grove where my knowledge of you lives.

Kahlil Gibran's letter
November 8, 1908

siggggh
Love,
North

Hello DK....

Sometimes a picture is a poem in itself

A storybook standing on a bookshelf

Herewith a "hug" to you in a different way

Nice picture of you I must say :)

Mieke

for L,

Let us be like sunflowers
And the blue sky
And let us both embrace
Like the sun
And hold our breath
And travel beyond the stars

by C.

© 2008

Well! That was a lovely read...especially the original ones, M & N!

I have one...it showed up two days after the crummy fact. From Sept. 13, 2001

.

Timeless Longing

.

Humanity longs to be free,
not knowing the longing itself.

Humanity longs for a love,
not knowing freedom itself.

Humanity longs to give aid,
not knowing to help itself.

Humanity longs for itself,
not knowing itself afraid.

Humanity longs to be brave,
not knowing courage itself.

Humanity longs to be itself,
not knowing it longs to belong.

Humanity longs to love itself,
not knowing...love is the longing.

"Leaning Into the Afternoons" by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
is arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that beats on your marine eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
That flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.

***

"A kind of loss" by Ingeborg Bachmann (1926- 1973)

Things shared: seasons, books and a piece of music.
The keys, the teacups, the bread basket, sheets and a bed.
A dowry -- of words, of gestures -- brought with, used, used up.
House rules followed. Said. Done. The hand given, always.

I fell in love with winter, with a Viennese septet and with summer.
With maps of the country, a mountain hideaway, a beach and a bed.
Idolized days on the calender, declared that promises last forever,
worshiped a something and was devout before nothing

(--the folded-up newspaper, cold ashes, the scrap with some notes on it),
fearless in religion for this bed was the church.

My inexhaustible painting went forth from this view of the lake.
I saluted all peoples, my neighbors, down from this balcony.
By the fireplace, safe, my hair was its uttermost color.
When it rang, the doorbell sounded the alarm for my happiness.

I haven't lost you, I've lost
the world.

"When I heard at the Close of the Day"
by Walt Whitman (1819- 1892)

WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d;
And else, when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourish’d me more—and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.

***

Poem 640 "I cannot live with You" by Emily Dickinson (1830- 1886)

Poem and Analysis from The Atlantic:

"I cannot live with You" (poem 640 in Thomas Johnson's edition of the Complete Poems) is Dickinson's longest mature lyric, addressed to a recognizably human, hopelessly loved other, and employing the structure and rhetoric of a persuasive argument. Here it is....

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/soundings/dickinson.htm
(or click my name)

Irvine, I have an antique Walt Whitman poetry book!! It is awesome, with pictures! It was nice to see a WW poem here! cooL! I thought I were the only WW fan at IB! lol

Love,
North

Other favorite love poems of mine include:

"He Is More Than a Hero" by Sappho (about 600 B.C.)

http://www.sappho.com/poetry/sappho2.html

***

"If Someone Would Come" by Lady Izumi Shikibu (970- 1030)

If someone would come,
I could show, and have him listen--
evening light shining
on bush clover in full bloom
as crickets bring on the night.

***

"Western Wind" by Anonymous (around 1500)

Western wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.

***

Sonnet 61 from Idea by Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

Since there is no help, come, let us kiss and part--
...
http://www.io.com/~kinnaman/drayton.html

***

"The business" by Robert Creeley (1926- 2005 )

http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0710&L=poetics&D=1&O=D&P=26637
(or click my name)

[...]Creeley's love poems from this period have the same quality of
extreme self-consciousness and introspection. Their speaker seeks to
understand love, because, he claims, all that he knows comes from
what it has taught him. Creeley is not an erotic poet. His women are
rarely physically present in the poems. He has more in common with
poets of courtly love than with Ovid or Catullus, who wrote
explicitly about the naked body. "The glorious lady of my mind," as
Dante calls Beatrice in La Vita Nuova, is also Creeley's worry. And
yet that ethereal vision is in daily conflict with the demands of
sharing the same bed and living under the same roof with a real
woman, who may or may not care for him, a relationship that requires
constant corroboration with all the accompanying risks:

THE BUSINESS

To be in love is like going out-
side to see what kind of day

it is. Do not
mistake me. If you love

her how prove she
loves also, except that it

occurs, a remote chance on
which you stake

yourself? But barter for
the Indian was a means of sustenance.

There are records.

[...]

***

"A Negro Love song" by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872- 1906)

SEEN my lady home las’ night,
...

http://www.bartleby.com/269/1.html

The book is "Leaves of Grass"

Hi North, I am a big fan of Whitman!

Among the contemporary poets, Mary Oliver's poetry (1935- ) reminds me of Whitman in content...

"An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver is often compared to Whitman and Thoreau. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home in Provincetown, Massachusetts: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. Maxine Kumin calls Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms" and "an indefatigable guide to the natural world."

Its amazing how Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are polar opposites in using the poetic element of 'words'... Dickinson is the master of packing so much content into so less...while Whitman unpacks in a free flow of expression...

I love Dickinson!! I agree, Whitman uses a free-flow style, which accounts for his longer paged poems. I prefer more content into less. : )

Sonnet CXVI
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests.. and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love is not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out.. even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be
by John Keats (1795 - 1821)

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Love Thee
by Eliza Acton, 1799-1859.

I love thee, as I love the calm
Of sweet, star-lighted hours!
I love thee, as I love the balm
Of early jes'mine flow'rs.
I love thee, as I love the last
Rich smile of fading day,
Which lingereth, like the look we cast,
On rapture pass'd away.
I love thee as I love the tone
Of some soft-breathing flute
Whose soul is wak'd for me alone,
When all beside is mute.

I love thee as I love the first
Young violet of the spring;
Or the pale lily, April-nurs'd,
To scented blossoming.
I love thee, as I love the full,
Clear gushings of the song,
Which lonely--sad--and beautiful--
At night-fall floats along,
Pour'd by the bul-bul forth to greet
The hours of rest and dew;
When melody and moonlight meet
To blend their charm, and hue.
I love thee, as the glad bird loves
The freedom of its wing,
On which delightedly it moves
In wildest wandering.

I love thee as I love the swell,
And hush, of some low strain,
Which bringeth, by its gentle spell,
The past to life again.
Such is the feeling which from thee
Nought earthly can allure:
'Tis ever link'd to all I see
Of gifted--high--and pure!
....

Love
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.

……….
Khalil Gibran

Love One Another

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself But if you love and must needs have desires,
Let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook
That sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart And give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer For the beloved in your heart And a song of praise upon your lips.

............

Song of Love XXIV

I am the lover's eyes, and the spirit's
Wine, and the heart's nourishment.
I am a rose. My heart opens at dawn and
The virgin kisses me and places me
Upon her breast.

I am the house of true fortune, and the
Origin of pleasure, and the beginning
Of peace and tranquility. I am the gentle
Smile upon his lips of beauty. When youth
Overtakes me he forgets his toil, and his
Whole life becomes reality of sweet dreams.

I am the poet's elation,
And the artist's revelation,
And the musician's inspiration.

I am a sacred shrine in the heart of a
Child, adored by a merciful mother.

I appear to a heart's cry; I shun a demand;
My fullness pursues the heart's desire;
It shuns the empty claim of the voice.

I appeared to Adam through Eve
And exile was his lot;
Yet I revealed myself to Solomon, and
He drew wisdom from my presence.

I smiled at Helena and she destroyed Tarwada;
Yet I crowned Cleopatra and peace dominated
The Valley of the Nile.

I am like the ages -- building today
And destroying tomorrow;
I am like a god, who creates and ruins;
I am sweeter than a violet's sigh;
I am more violent than a raging tempest.

Gifts alone do not entice me;
Parting does not discourage me;
Poverty does not chase me;
Jealousy does not prove my awareness;
Madness does not evidence my presence.

Oh seekers, I am Truth, beseeching Truth;
And your Truth in seeking and receiving
And protecting me shall determine my
Behavior.

.......

The Life of Love XVI

Spring

Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys.
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw
Inspiration high above the cool green plains.

Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept garment
And placed it on the peach and citrus trees; and
They appear as brides in the ceremonial custom of
the Night of Kedre.

The sprigs of grapevine embrace each other like
Sweethearts, and the brooks burst out in dance
Between the rocks, repeating the song of joy;
And the flowers bud suddenly from the heart of
Nature, like foam from the rich heart of the sea.

Come, my beloved; let us drink the last of Winter's
Tears from the cupped lilies, and soothe our spirits
With the shower of notes from the birds, and wander
In exhilaration through the intoxicating breeze.

Let us sit by that rock, where violets hide; let us
Pursue their exchange of the sweetness of kisses.

...............

Summer

Let us go into the fields, my beloved, for the
Time of harvest approaches, and the sun's eyes
Are ripening the grain.
Let us tend the fruit of the earth, as the
Spirit nourishes the grains of Joy from the
Seeds of Love, sowed deep in our hearts.
Let us fill our bins with the products of
Nature, as life fills so abundantly the
Domain of our hearts with her endless bounty.
Let us make the flowers our bed, and the
Sky our blanket, and rest our heads together
Upon pillows of soft hay.
Let us relax after the day's toil, and listen
To the provoking murmur of the brook.
..................

Autumn

Let us go and gather grapes in the vineyard
For the winepress, and keep the wine in old
Vases, as the spirit keeps Knowledge of the
Ages in eternal vessels.

Let us return to our dwelling, for the wind has
Caused the yellow leaves to fall and shroud the
Withering flowers that whisper elegy to Summer.
Come home, my eternal sweetheart, for the birds
Have made pilgrimage to warmth and lest the chilled
Prairies suffering pangs of solitude. The jasmine
And myrtle have no more tears.

Let us retreat, for the tired brook has
Ceased its song; and the bubblesome springs
Are drained of their copious weeping; and
Their cautious old hills have stored away
Their colorful garments.

Come, my beloved; Nature is justly weary
And is bidding her enthusiasm farewell
With quiet and contented melody.

..................
Winter

Come close to me, oh companion of my full life;
Come close to me and let not Winter's touch
Enter between us. Sit by me before the hearth,
For fire is the only fruit of Winter.

Speak to me of the glory of your heart, for
That is greater than the shrieking elements
Beyond our door.
Bind the door and seal the transoms, for the
Angry countenance of the heaven depresses my
Spirit, and the face of our snow-laden fields
Makes my soul cry.

Feed the lamp with oil and let it not dim, and
Place it by you, so I can read with tears what
Your life with me has written upon your face.

Bring Autumn's wine. Let us drink and sing the
Song of remembrance to Spring's carefree sowing,
And Summer's watchful tending, and Autumn's
Reward in harvest.

Come close to me, oh beloved of my soul; the
Fire is cooling and fleeing under the ashes.
Embrace me, for I fear loneliness; the lamp is
Dim, and the wine which we pressed is closing
Our eyes. Let us look upon each other before
They are shut.
Find me with your arms and embrace me; let
Slumber then embrace our souls as one.
Kiss me, my beloved, for Winter has stolen
All but our moving lips.

You are close by me, My Forever.
How deep and wide will be the ocean of Slumber,
And how recent was the dawn!

Khalil Gibran

Leave Me, My Blamer XIII

Leave me, my blamer,
For the sake of the love
Which unites your soul with
That of your beloved one;
For the sake of that which
Joins spirit with mothers
Affection, and ties your
Heart with filial love. Go,
And leave me to my own
Weeping heart.

Let me sail in the ocean of
My dreams; Wait until Tomorrow
Comes, for tomorrow is free to
Do with me as he wishes. Your
Laying is naught but shadow
That walks with the spirit to
The tomb of abashment, and shows
Heard the cold, solid earth.

I have a little heart within me
And I like to bring him out of
His prison and carry him on the
Palm of my hand to examine him
In depth and extract his secret.
Aim not your arrows at him, lest
He takes fright and vanish 'ere he
Pours the secrets blood as a
Sacrifice at the altar of his
Own faith, given him by Deity
When he fashioned him of love and beauty.

The sun is rising and the nightingale
Is singing, and the myrtle is
Breathing its fragrance into space.
I want to free myself from the
Quilted slumber of wrong. Do not
Detain me, my blamer!

Cavil me not by mention of the
Lions of the forest or the
Snakes of the valley, for
Me soul knows no fear of earth and
Accepts no warning of evil before
Evil comes.

Advise me not, my blamer, for
Calamities have opened my heart and
Tears have cleanses my eyes, and
Errors have taught me the language
Of the hearts.

Talk not of banishment, for conscience
Is my judge and he will justify me
And protect me if I am innocent, and
Will deny me of life if I am a criminal.

Love's procession is moving;
Beauty is waving her banner;
Youth is sounding the trumpet of joy;
Disturb not my contrition, my blamer.
Let me walk, for the path is rich
With roses and mint, and the air
Is scented with cleanliness.

Relate not the tales of wealth and
Greatness, for my soul is rich
With bounty and great with God's glory.

Speak not of peoples and laws and
Kingdoms, for the whole earth is
My birthplace and all humans are
My brothers.

Go from me, for you are taking away
Life - giving repentance and bringing
Needless words.

…
Song of the Soul XXII

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.

How can I sigh it? I fear it may
Mingle with earthly ether;
To whom shall I sing it? It dwells
In the house of my soul, in fear of
Harsh ears.

When I look into my inner eyes
I see the shadow of its shadow;
When I touch my fingertips
I feel its vibrations.

The deeds of my hands heed its
Presence as a lake must reflect
The glittering stars; my tears
Reveal it, as bright drops of dew
Reveal the secret of a withering rose.

It is a song composed by contemplation,
And published by silence,
And shunned by clamor,
And folded by truth,
And repeated by dreams,
And understood by love,
And hidden by awakening,
And sung by the soul.

It is the song of love;
What Cain or Esau could sing it?

It is more fragrant than jasmine;
What voice could enslave it?

It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret;
What string could quiver it?

Who dares unite the roar of the sea
And the singing of the nightingale?
Who dares compare the shrieking tempest
To the sigh of an infant?
Who dares speak aloud the words
Intended for the heart to speak?
What human dares sing in voice
The song of God?

can we all share some most beautiful love letters written in the world ?

Dear Mr. Matai,
I don't know exactly what kind of love poem you are looking forward to... still trying to be a part of this quest by sharing my personal favouite. Its THE BLESSED DAMOSEL by Gabriel Christina Rosetti. The arrangement of the verses are not original...i am sorry about that. They got altered while copying from the net! The poem though ignites the same magic each time I read it. You must have read it already...and if you have not, then please do get it from some book store. Don't trust this download. The formt is atrocious! Regards.

The Blessed Damnosel.

Blessed Damosel leaned out
From the gold bar of heaven;
Her eyes knew more of rest and shade
Than waters stilled at even,
She held three lilies in-her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
her robe, ungirt from clasp to henm,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service neatly worn;
And the hair lying down her back
Was yellow, like ripe corn.
Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers,
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers,
Albeit to them she left the day
Had counted as ten years.
(To one it is ten years of years.
... Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o'er me,-her hair
Fell all about my face.....
Nothing,-the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.),
It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on,
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is space begun,
So high that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in heaven, across the flood
Of AEther, like a bridge;
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and blackness ridge
The void, as low as where the earth
Spins, like a fretful midge.
She scarcely heard her sweet new friends
Playing at holy games,
Softly they spoke among themselves
Their virginal, chaste names,

And the souls, mounting up to God,
Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bowed above the vast
Waste sea of worlds that swarm,
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.
From the fixed place of heaven, she saw
Time, like a pulse, shake fierce
Through all the worlds, her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path, and now she spoke, as when
The stars sung in their spheres.
The sun was gone now, the curved moon
Hung, like a little feather,
littering far down the gulf, and now
She spoke through the still weather,
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had, when they sang together.
"I wish that lie would come to me!
For he will come," she said.
"Have I not prayed in heaven? on earth
Lord! Lord! has he not prayed ?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?
"When 'round his head the aureole clings
And he is clothed in white,
I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light,
And we will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there, in God's sight.
" We two will stand beside that shrine
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
By prayers sent up to God,
And see our old prayers, granted, melt,
Each like a little cloud.
"We two will lie in the shadow of
The living, mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that his plumes touch
Saith his name audibly.
"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here, which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find new knowledge in each pause
Or some new thing, to know."

(Ah, sweet! just now, in that bird's song,
Strove not her accents there
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the midday air,
Was she not stepping to my side
Down all the trembling stair ?)
"We two," she said "will seek the grove
Where the lady Mary is
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,-
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdaleni,
Margaret and Rosalys.
"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded,
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.
"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb,
Then I will lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak,
And the dear Mother shall approve
My pride, and let ine speak

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him, 'round whom all souls
Kneel, the unnumbered ransomed heads
Bowed with their aureoles;
And angels meeting us, shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.
"There +Xill I aok of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me,-
Only to live, as once on earth,
At peace, only to be,
As then awhile, forever now
Together, I and he."
She gazed, and listened, and then said)
Less sad of speech than mild,
All this is when he comes," she ceased,
The light thrilled past her, filled
With angels in strong level lapse,-
1er eyes prayed, and she smiled.
(I saw her smile) but soon their flight
Was vague in distant spheres,
And then she laid her arms along
The golden barriers,
And bowed her head upon her hand
And wept; (I heard her tears.)

Never fancied myself as a poet, yet couldn't help it, the verses,
like swarms of bees buzzed to be released. Here is one of them:

Where all the rush has gone,
eagerness ?

Suspended will, desires have none, quiet,
selfless

Fear have parted, taking her friends,
no remorse left, just -
kindness

No pain of cracking the mold of the heart
broken to,
openness

Only the humming of bees, following
ecstasy nectar of bliss -
dizziness

Names and forms are next to it,
meaningless

Who am I ? Echoing .... I am That -
nameless

Awakened, witness of all ever flowing
wakefulness

p. s. unfortunately the setting of the system does not allow to place
the lines in my verse the way it was intended, no matter how
much I've tried

"Where all the rush has gone,"

I use of white space would make the poem better. An interesting attempt. I would revise it further though. Just to note that it is very rare to find a person who excels in both painting and poetry.